Save the Blue Heart of Europe - A campaign for the protection of Balkan Rivers
Webinars
UPCOMING WEBINARS
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Join us for this critical conversation about the potential and challenges of granting legal rights to rivers in Europe.- How has the Rights of Nature debate evolved globally and within Europe?
- What lessons can European river defenders draw from successful cases elsewhere?
- What does recognising rivers as rights-bearing entities mean in practice?
- What legal or ethical added value could recognising rivers as rights-bearing entities bring to European river protection efforts?
Speakers
MARIE TOUSSAINT is a French environmental activist and jurist in international environmental law. She founded the NGO Notre affaire à tous and co-founded the Ecocide Alliance, advocating for the recognition of ecocide and the rights of nature. She initiated L’Affaire du Siècle, Europe’s largest climate litigation case. Elected Member of the European Parliament since 2019 with the Greens/EFA group, she campaigns for environmental justice, human dignity, and a politics of care in Europe and beyond.
EDUARDO SALAZAR ORTUÑO, PhD on Environmental Law, is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Murcia (Spain). He was a Public Interest Enviromental Lawyer during 25 years, specialized on Environmental Law Enforcement, Aarhus Convention and Rights of Nature. Member of Environmental Law Worldwide Alliance (ELAW) and the UICN Environmental Law Commission. Promoter of the Mar Menor Act 19/2022, nowadays is the Vicepresident of the Reoresentatives Commission of Mar Mneor and its basin's Tutorship.
ANNETTE MEHLHORN is based at the Humboldt University of Berlin where she is researching practices and foundations of critical environmental knowledge production
in an international project. Priorly she was an investigator in a project on the Rights of Nature at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, where she also completed her PhD, focusing on law and radical politics.
GRANT WILSON, Esq., is the Executive Director of Earth Law, which advances the Rights of Nature and Earth-centered laws worldwide. He has helped advance these movements in dozens of countries over the past twelve years. He is also a co-lead editor of the law school textbook Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Guide for Practitioners (Aspen 2026). Grant earned a J.D. with a Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law from Lewis & Clark Law School.
ZOE LUJIC is the founder and leader of Earth Thrive, advancing Rights of Nature initiatives in Europe through the Balkan Centre for the Rights of Nature and the Rights of the Mediterranean Bioregion Declaration. A Rights of Nature advocate since 2012, she contributed to the early development of the international Law of Ecocide, organised two Rights of Nature Tribunals, submitted three landmark Bern Convention complaints against Serbia and co-drafted a National Law on the Rights of Rivers in Serbia.
Discussant
MALGORZATA SMOLAK is an environmental and energy lawyer specializing in EU and international law. She advises NGOs on river protection and energy transition. Her work focuses on compliance with and enforcement of EU environmental law, particularly in relation to hydropower development and river infrastructure projects affecting freshwater ecosystems. She is actively involved in the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign and the Lawyers for Rivers initiative.
Join us for this first, critical conversation and help shape the future of river protection in Europe.
A Zoom link will be sent to registered participants prior to the event.
PAST WEBINARS
Latest findings from the Sarantaporos Science Week
In 2024, a Science Week was held on the Sarantaporos River in Greece. The one-week event featured a diverse team of around 50 Greek and international scientists. Finally, we are ready to share some of the amazing results gathered! This webinar focused on the latest updates on the Save the Blue Heart of Europe Campaign, delved into the results of the Sarantaporos Science Week 2024 and explored how scientific arguments contribute to the protection of highly intact river systems. This online event was realised in collaboration with MedINA.
Weren't able to join? No problem - watch the recording below!
Neretva Biodiversity
In 2022 and 2023, two Science Weeks were held on the Upper Neretva River. The two one-week events resulted in two attractive Preliminary Reports in accessible language and a series of scientific papers. The results were astonishing. More than 2000 species were found in two weeks, nine species new to science (!), round 80 species strictly protected in Republika Srpska, cca. 60 rare and endangered plant species in BiH and 25 plant species endemic to the Balkans. Moreover, new important insights into the functioning of a pristine river – something we already lost in most of Europe. In this webinar, we presented the results of two Neretva Science Weeks, discussed about the impacts of these events on the future of Neretva and revealed our plans for the future.
Weren't able to join? No problem - watch the recording below!
Neretva Science Week 2022 Results
The Neretva Science Week that took place from June 28th to July 5th, 2022 brought 50 scientists from around Europe to research the highly intact Neretva River in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They collected data aimed at characterising this highly threatened riverine ecosystem. In this webinar, scientists presented the main findings, that all argue for the protection of this unique river system. In addition, we discussed the positive impact these results already have and what we expect from the Scientists for Balkan Rivers Network in the coming year, including plans for a second Neretva Science Week.
Weren't able to join? No problem - watch the recording below!
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Join us for our next webinar on November 4th,2021 (3-5 pm CEWT) to discuss with river activists and experts from the Balkans and beyond about social impacts of hydropower, their resistance and the lessons learned from successful river activism.
For years, we have highlighted how the ongoing hydropower boom is destroying Europe’s last free-flowing rivers and riverine ecosystems in the Western Balkans. However, the fight for free-flowing rivers is also about people, the way hydropower affects them and their relentless efforts to halt dam plans.
In our upcoming webinar we will discuss the social dimensions of hydropower. We will talk about the impacts of hydropower projects on communities, their economies, livelihoods, and culture. We will hear from activists who have dedicated their lives and energy to fighting destructive dams: what motivates them, which have been their most successful strategies, how they have dealt with major obstacles to their activism, and how we can collectively strengthen our fight against new hydropower plants.
Find here infos about the speakers
Legal Tools to Protect Rivers from Hydropower Development!
In our next webinar on Thursday, 29 April (14-16:00), we will be presenting our Legal Toolkit (read online or download the PDF) for the protection of rivers. Together with our partners from Wetlands International Europe and ClientEarth, we invite you to share and discuss your experiences and questions regarding legal steps taken against hydropower projects! REGISTER HERE
To make way for the rapid development of hydropower, mandatory legal procedures and environmental impact assessment provisions are often sidestepped or not properly implemented. International laws and and EU environmental regulations have therefore become valuable tools in preventing the construction of new hydropower projects.
The webinar will be the first in a series of events under the Lawyers for Rivers initiative, conceived in the context of the "Save the Blue Heart of Europe" campaign and launched together with EuroNatur, Riverwatch, GEOTA, Wetlands International Europe and WWF Adria. Lawyers for Rivers aims to enable capacity building and exchange on experiences with legal activism for river protection.
The Beauties and the Beasts - Balkan Rivers at risk
On March 4th, 2021, we held our first webinar, followed live by 350 people via Zoom Webinar and Facebook live stream.
Weren't able to join? No problem - watch the recording below!
In this webinar we gave an overview about the river jewels of Europe, the threat they are facing and our campaign to save them. We explained how we try to achieve the impossible: to save the Balkan rivers from a dam tsunami of more than 3,400 hydropower projects.
The webinar featured Ulrich Eichelmann, Riverwatch and Anntette Spangenberg, EuroNatur giving an overview about our strategies and tools (minute 06:17), representatives of our legal defence team Maja Pravuljac (Client Earth) and Nina Kresevljakovic (Aarhus Center BiH) explaining how we defend Balkan rivers in court (min 35:51), Ulrich Eichelmann outlining our Artists for Balkan Rivers project (min 1:11:00), and Olsi Nika, EcoAlbania presenting the Vjosa case and our efforts to establish Europe’s first Wild River National Park (min 1:28:00). We also had a guest speaker from Patagonia - Environmental Action & Initiatives Director Beth Thoren - talk about the brand new short film "Vjosa Forever" (min 01:17:00).